Virtual Values: The Social Suicide of My Generation Everything that we experience does not exist. We have been conditioned through the circumstances of contemporary society and technology to value ideas, objects, and individuals that are no nearer or concrete to us than the God Particle. Everything is mediated through a screen, metaphorical and physical. “The screen interface…becomes a kind of ‘distance’…a visibility without any face to face encounter…” (Virilio, “The Overexposed City” 12,13). We are never fully present in the physical world. In some way, shape, or form, we are stretching and directing our attention somewhere other than the place where we are. Is my computer on? How about my TV? My cell phone? These screens mediate our consumption of the meaningless and have conditioned us to believe that faster is better: in obtaining, in entertaining, in living. Faster, faster, and still faster we move through digital spaces to the extent that we are able to process moments in microseconds. We can instantly comprehend any digital situation to the point where we move through our real reality in a similar way, never actually living in the moment, but living through the moment. We never experience, but have gone through the experience. As Paul Virilio touched upon in Dromoscopy, the arrival has supplanted the journey. Here or there no longer matters because we are always everywhere (“The Overexposed City” 13, 14, 25; “Dromoscopy” 118). Temporality, cluelessness, ignorance, and stupidity, are all appropriate descriptions for what I and my generation cherish in our lives. We are addicts that refuse to acknowledge that our addiction is destroying ourselves, the world around us, and the possibility of a sustainable and genuine exterior life. When nothing is real and everything is devoid of substance, what is there to actually value? The root of this digital disembodiment is our complicit roles as consumeristic whores. We give little thought about the practicality or actual usefulness of the technology that we are spending our lives on and with, so long as it’s new, different, and maintains our spot in the conglomerate prostitution ring. These things are our payment for selling our physicality. It is pathetic that we willingly distract and immerse ourselves to the point that we become what Virilio deemed the destination and never allow ourselves to experience who we really are as individuals without the “benefit” of technology (“Dromoscopy” 116). How fast are your download speeds? How many pixels does your display have? Is your cell phone 4G? What do you mean that you don’t have the latest format, gizmo, doohickey, thingy that thinks for you? You really should get it, it works so well you could date it and dump your boyfriend or girlfriend. It won’t yell at you when you ignore it, but of course that won’t happen any way because we never ignore our gadgets. I do not share Virilio’s optimism that we are bright enough to mediate a meaningful remedy. Maybe if there was an app for that, I’d be less cynical. Everything that we have is temporary: our lives, our food sources, our entire world. Even though everything is temporary, we don’t value our reality as if it has inherent worth. We need to slow down, but if we do that, consumerism will perish. Complacently and complicity we continue on in our digitally augmented lives. The convenience of this has sealed our coffins, and we’re long past using a crowbar to pry them back open. Works Cited Virilio, Paul. “Dromoscopy.” Negative Horizon. Trans. Michael Degener. NY: Continuum, 2006. 105-119. Print. - - -. “The Overexposed City.” Lost Dimension. Trans. Daniel Moshenberg. US: Semiotext(e), 1991. 9-27 Print.